A man who believes his terminal cancer may not have spread without NHS treatment delays described Labour as “the party of hope for a brighter future I won’t live to see”, as he introduced Sir Keir Starmer’s general election manifesto launch.
Nathaniel Dye, a 38-year-old music teacher, spoke emotionally to the audience at Manchester’s Co-op headquarters as he described himself as representing “the human cost of an NHS neglected over the past 14 years”.
And he praised the policies put forward by shadow health secretary Wes Streeting in Labour’s manifesto “as a real tangible plan to give people the treatment they need before it’s too late”.
“When I was first diagnosed in October 2022 it looked like I might be able to survive the bowel cancer that had only spread to my liver, and be cancer-free after surgery. But when further spread was discovered in my lungs and lymph nodes in my neck, my prognosis worsened,” Mr Dye said.
“There’s nothing I can do about it now, but I can’t stop wondering what might have been – because I spent over 100 days waiting for cancer treatment when the government’s target is 62, and there’s a chance that if chemotherapy would have come sooner, my cancer would not have spread.
He added: “It’s clear that the system has badly let me down. I represent the human cost of an NHS neglected over the past 14 years, and I invite anyone who stands by that dismal record in government to look me in the eye and say that it was good enough.
“We all deserve so much more. And I see Labour’s policy to deliver 40,000 more appointments a week, to clear the NHS backlog, and cut waiting times, as a real tangible plan to give people the treatment they need before it’s too late.”
Mr Dye, who previously introduced Mr Streeting at Labour’s conference in 2023, continued: “Why should I bother to speak up now? After all, it is too late for me. But it’s not too late to call for change, to support those who would improve the NHS so that others in my unfortunate position might live to grow old, even though I won’t – because I won’t.
“If I’ve learned anything from my sorry experience, it’s that time is of the essence. And I know that Wes Streeting – a cancer survivor himself – will give everything to get our NHS back up to speed. Because a system better set up to work more quickly can mean the difference between life and death.
“This looks like being my last general election, and I am desperate to make it count. I’m proud to say that a Labour government is what I hope for now that my own hope is gone.”
Mr Dye closed his speech by describing Labour as “the party of hope for a brighter future I won’t live to see – but you really could”, adding: “I live in hope.”
The music teacher previously told The Mirror that he had waited three weeks for an initial colonoscopy, before facing a further three-week delay to get confirmation that he had cancer, having already been told there was a 70 to 80 per cent chance that he did.
Labour has pledged to cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more evening and weekend appointments, and to double the number of CT and MRI scans and extra equipment to achieve an additional two million operations, scans, and appointments in the first year of entering government.
Speaking in October, Mr Streeting told Mr Dye: “When you talked about the delay and the length of time – it’s life and death. That is the difference and I think it is deeply unfair.
“That through a combination of good luck with kidney stones and good timing with the scans … My outcomes are so different to yours and that is the injustice and unfairness of it.”
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